In this week’s Publisher’s Weekly Comics Week, I took a look at what the library market for graphic novels looks like. One of the things I found is that if you want to estimate the number of graphic novels in the library system, multiplying the number of libraries carrying a title by 3 is going to get you a ballpark number. (This was arrived both by dividing out Baker & Taylor numbers by libraries and by eyeballing actual library listings.) Yes, this is a mass estimate, but it’s as good an estimate as you’re likely to get.

To get a sense of what kind of volume is possible in the library market, I’ve sifted through WorldCat to get some examples of the better selling titles out there ins the categories of Literary (or adult/non-superhero), Superhero and Vertigo.  (OK, Vertigo isn’t an actual library category, but most people associate Vertigo with the move towards graphic novels/collected editions.)  For the Juvenile category, sited by both Jamie Carter of Publisher’s Alley and Kuo-Yu Liang of Diamond Book Distributors as particularly popular, I’ve pulled titles from an actual School Library Journal circulation report.

Two notes on these WorldCat records: 1) Some books, particularly older ones like The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and Sandman, as well as Bone, just have so many different editions over the years that are entered into catalogs differently, they’re just hard to accurately track.  Which is why you’re not seeing them on this list.  2) Libraries sometimes will enter a graphic novel as part of a series, so with some of these multi-edition entries, they could be different printings or different volumes in the series.  This is more confusing when it appears a graphic novel adaption of a prose series may have been lumped in with the prose listing.  (See: Redwall)

Juvenile Fiction, sampled from School Library Journal circulation reports.

Literary/Non-Superhero

Superhero

Vertigo (Post-Sandman)

As predicted by our experts, that sampling of popularly circulating juvenile titles looks to be on the same strata as only the most popular of the superhero titles.  Similarly, the handful of noted “literary” graphic novels that have come out it recent years tend to compare favorably with all but the most popular superhero titles.  When it comes to “normal,” recent superhero collections, they tend to be stocked in lower numbers that Blue Beetle.  Vertigo, which you might suspect to be a library powerhouse, really tends to track more like superhero titles: a couple hits, but not particularly significant compared to the literary category.

The bulk of the bestsellers have been released by imprints of “traditional” prose books.  Give DC some credit.  They penetrated the library market very well with Plain Janes and when they had material in a slightly more literary vein, like LOEG and Sloth, they performed well with that as well.  (Should Gilbert Hernandez be in 2.5x the number of libraries with Vertigo, than with Fantagraphics?  That’s marketing to libraries.)  They seem to be hitting slightly higher heights with superhero books than Marvel.

The graphic novel market for libraries is new and growing.  These numbers should be on the rise.  One of the things to keep in mind for the juvenile fiction category is the existence of Baker & Taylor’s autoship program.  With autoship, a library can flag an author or a series and have future titles automatically shipped.  And yes, “series” applies to graphic novels.  Especially manga.  It’s much easier to keep the numbers up when there’s an open order for new material.